An impressive amount of films nitin, I never find the time, too many games. Thanks for the continuing reviews though, gives a good guideline the next time I want to see anything. 

Been a bit sick the last few days and watched some telly.
I thought this would be a crap Spanish flick about hysterical women complaining about their problems. I was dead wrong.

It's one of the best films in near history I've seen.

It's hard to tell about a good movie without spoiling it. But you know that I'm very critical of most stuff and I definitely urge you to see this, if you movies that actually have plots, as well as strong and different lifelike characters. 

Mark Anthony was the best character by far, I liked him in season one also. It's so awesome how everyone considers him "a destructive brute" but he's so fake-polite with that smirk of his, and he always has to sit at tables and listen to petitioners and you can just tell he hates politics.

The finale was really lame though, it was so obvious who was going to die and why, although they did handle the increasing sociopath aspect of Octavian fairly well. The series as a whole was decent (I like historical settings and R ratings), but not worth canceling Deadwood over. 

I've liked all of almodovar's recent stuff, All About My Mother being the greatest.

tronyn, pretty much agree with all that. And yes good as it was, definitely not worth Deadwood's cancellation. 

which is interesting (if perhaps obvious) about Rome season 2, is that the good guy (Anthony) seems like he could kill anyone as soon as look at them, but actually has an inherent emotional compass, whereas the bad guy (Octavian) seems nice and friendly but has no morality whatsoever. Maybe I've been watching Dark Knight trailers and No Country For Old Men too much lately, but it seems like people are opting for this type of moral opposition more and more these days. The externally bad guy is good and the externally good guy is bad. 

A Place in the Sun (1951) - very good noirish melodrama from George Stevens that unfolds pretty well and has pretty good performances from Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters and Elizabeth Taylor. I would also bet good money that Woody Allen had this in mind when he made Match Point.

7/10



Diary of a Country Priest (1951) - great film about a lonely, sick and generally unliked country priest in France who faces the question of whether it is enough to have only god as your companion. Its extremely well made in a very unobtrusive style by Robert Bresson and thankfully does not preach anything, but makes some very powerful points no matter what your stand on the issue of religion is.

8/10


Veronica Mars Season 3 - easily the weakest of the three seasons, especially the last 5-6 epsiodes but I still found it to be not too far from the quality of the previous seasons. Sure, the major story arcs are gone and the side characters are relegated to cameo status but I've never really cared for those previously and the thing I've always liked about the show are the dialogue and kristen bell. And both of those were still top notch this season.

6.5/10


The Stranger (1946) - orson welles does hitchcock in this moody thriller that has a propestrous plot but good characterisations and direction. The suspense is first rate too.

7/10


Dexter Season 1 - pretty decent show, although I think it plays it too safe with the concept it has and needs to be darker in order to mine the material to its fullest extent.

7/10


Kansas City Confidential (1952) - fairly solid minor noir that is well written and well performed.

7/10


Late Spring (1949) - very good family drama from yasujiro ozu that moves pretty slowly but that pace allows Satsuko Hara to put in a really strong performance as a woman in post war japan on whom marriage is forced by society.

7/10



The Face of Another (1966) - second film of hiroshi teshigahara that I have seen, and so far I think the man was a better philosopher than he was a filmmaker.

This has a concept similar to that in Face Off but approaches it more from a philosophical and existential point of view rather than as an excuse for a (pretty good) action film. Anyway, the film is a mish mash of approaches and ideas that, while interesting in themselves, are never presented in a coherent or consistent manner.

6/10



Die Hard 4 - like the last two, its nowhere near the quality of the first because it forgets to build its action and doesn�t have a villain to match Hans Gruber. The action scenes are pretty well staged but are overly silly and preposterous from the start.

6/10


Heroes Season 1 - first half is much better than the second half (with the exception of the very first episode which is very very average) but the longer it goes on, the sillier it gets. By the end the silliness level is pretty high and the plot holes fairly big.

Still, most of it is pretty decent with interesting characters and, at least initially, interesting themes.

7/10



Volver - Almodovar's latest is quite good although I found some of the plotline to be a bit too predictable and unremarkable. Still the characters and their interactions are interesting, the mood is well done and the perfromances are spot on.

7-7.5/10 

Shoot Em Up - This film is enjoyable, if completely absurdly rediculous right from the start! And it is - right from the idea of pulling a carrot from the soil only for it to be clean straight away to the idea of carrying a supply of them around in a rucksack to killing people by ramming one into their eye sockets (more than once this happens) this film is utter nonsense. The script is complete cheese and the plot is just a cheap excuse to have many 'government type highly oganised' bad guys chasing after a lone vigilante-type-character.
But, make no mistake, none of the afforementioned 'bad points' detract from the film overall. You see this film is great fun to watch, very well acted, extremely well directed, looks amazing and is pure entertainment right from the start to the finish. A pure adrenaline rush of gut-wrenching action and glory! Watch it now!!

8-9/10 

I think the basic plot premise is very very stupid but there's a lot of stuff there that's done pretty well nevertheless. Some work of the supporting actors and their dialog etc is nice at times... I didn't watch the early part of the first season much though.

Dexter's sister is that emotion showing counterpart to him and I think is a very important part of the show working. I really can't put my finger on her acting - it's hard to really judge it. And of course it's nice to have some of the problems that are represented as happening to a psychopath when really many ordinary people experience some similar things - I find Dexter one of those characters that are in some way easy to feel similar to, compared to the loud "Friends" type characters in US tv shows (yeah they're different genres and caricatures etc but still...).

So all in all some nice TV drama can be made even if the basic idea is crap. Perhaps just because of that, for some weird reason. 

well the idea is silly but they can do so much more with it,

As for the sister, I dont think its great acting but rather a combination of good casting and writing for her character. their relationship is one of the more believble ones on tv. 

Actually, i thought Dexter could've been less 'crime' and more sarcastic black humor character study. They could use the setting and his character a LOT more. But i guess it's hard for an american tv series to cut all the typical series crap.

This was one of the first shows with a main storyline throughout all episodes i actually liked. The La Guertha(?) character is a bit stereotype and overdone, and so is the black cop's writing, but the rest of the guys were pretty much spot on imho. The writing/plot... well, back to the 'series' argument: it could've been a lot more tight (although the show would have a hard time if it was any faster) and thought through, but i guess it's hard to fill 12 episodes. I would like to have it bounce the ball between characters a bit more; the way it is, there's only about 2-3 non-main characters in any given episode.

Also, the obvious 'we need to get a look into all the characters life' part sucks. Why, the main character is emotionally detached and we're in his view most of the time - so don't try to make me feel sorry for the career woman losing her job. But that's the 'typical US show' again :(, and probably adds to the feeling that the show could've worked better with a 'team' of characters that played ball (instead of attention whoring the shit out of eachother ;) AND the main char.)

Guess imho they could've cut the 'catching the serial killer' part a lot, and focused on the main character more. His job looks kinda interesting for example (i doubt it's realistic), and the feel of it would allow it to have lots of influence on his understanding and perception of the world around him. That's the stuff I'm interested in - you have an interesting character, so try to make me understand him and present the world from his POV in an interesting way. I think the show could have worked (better?) if there wouldn't have been a main story line at all, but seperate plots for each episode instead.

I can't stand shit like Prison Break - we're breaking out of a prison - for 15+ fucking episodes. right. The first two episodes were interesting, then it just became zZz :(

That's one thing i liked about dex - it doesn't try so hard to drag the main story over the course of the series.

btw, what's so silly about the idea of it? 

to the tune of merry music. And interspersed with light family drama. 

can somebody tell me WHY this did kill the conversation? :o 

"Cutting Live People In Pieces to the tune of merry music. And interspersed with light family drama"

Well I have to say thats not necessarily stupid in my book. Wrong/disturbing depending on your tastes maybe, but not stupid.

The silliness/stupid aspect for me is more with the implementation of Dexter's sociopathy. You never really see it save for the fact that he kills people in the way bambuz described (and to a lesser extent his fascination with the ice truck killer's methods). As it is though, he comes across more as your general vigilante rather than a sociopath.

Basically the sociopathic character serves the plots rather than the plots serving th character. One of the better epsiodes was with the pscyhiatrist that he goes after but also ends up seeing. That episode at least revealed a bit more about the character (even though ultimately it was used to serve plot again). 

that was idiocy.

I can't kill him yet, I need another session!

And boom he got his sexuality working.

Le sigh. 

Days of Heaven (1978) - Never thought I would see richard gere in a good film, let alone a great one. The imagery is astounding, the majority of this film has some of the most perfect lighting I have ever seen (and all of it is natural light which is even more staggering).

But its not just a collation of pretty images, I think this movie takes visual storytelling to a whole new level. You don�t really get to know the characters or see the story progress in the conventional sense, which I assume will put off a lot of people, but to me the method employed was at least as effective as conventional storytelling if not more.

8-8.5/10


The Battle of Algiers (1966) - infamous for being used by the Black Panthers and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as propaganda & training aid and also by the Pentagon in 2003 as an illustration of the problems that might occur in iraq, Gillo Pontecervo's depiction of the main period of the algerian war of independence is also one heck of a film.

The faux documentary filmmaking technique is flawless in its implementation and combined with Ennio Morricone's perfectly aligned score manages to put your right 'there' in the middle of everything. Amazing and extremely fascinating.

9-9.5/10


Pirates of the Carribeann 3 - there's some good stuff in here (the Leone homage was particularly inspired), too bad it's just surrounded in a total mess. Still, it's more than what the all round terrible second film offered.

5/10 

nitin giving a rating of 9.5? omg! 

Aliens vs. Predator - what a load of utter toss. Alien(s)/3 were good, Predator was good, AVP2 PC game was good. This isn't and lacks any redeeming features apart from a couple of shots of the Predator looking kinda cool.

(Hardly relevant I know but I had to diss it) 

Aliens vs. Predator

I tried really hard to like this film!! I dunno, Aliens for me was the best film, although Alien 3 I think was also brilliant. AVP just fell short with character development, script, plot etc. I thought that the film on the whole LOOKED good, and it had a reasonable ending...

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

I watched this yesterday at the cinema. Dont really know what to say about it. It too lacked any real character development, and the ending really sucked!! I was a bit more brutal than AVP1...

In short, if your a fan of the Alien films, you may enjoy either/both films, but dont expect anything as classy as Aliens. The fight scenes and action sequences in these new films are good!! The acting/plot/script isnt.

:-| 

I liked it, BUT I wasn't expecting too much in the first place. I went basically to see aliens and predators kill each other, and I was happy with the result (which happened to be aliens and predators killing each other.) Also, alien-predator hybrid.

Didn't see requiem, but yeah I heard it was bad.

P.S. If you expect character development from AvP, shame on you. 

That nuke movie from 2002. On TV. Watched half-assedly. It just didn't captivate enough I'm afraid. It was not entirely bad but just felt as if the makers didn't put on a full serious effort. 

I agree entirely, thats kinda what I'm saying! I enjoyed the films because I too wanted too see Aliens and Predators killing eachother.

I just think that if you compare the new movies with classic Aliens or suchlike, you have fuck all plot! Aliens was a fantastically charismatic film. I mean who cant remember half of the lines out of the movie? It had a degree of classiness about its overall mood/feel. It was all slightly 'fantasy' style. It left just the right amount to the imagination...

The new movies just dont have the same memorability IMHO. Personally, I'm still a fan. I WILL be adding 'Requiem' to my DVD collection when it comes out to buy!! 

of both the original Alien and Terminator movies but I hated the second movie in each sequence, Aliens and T2.

Aliens soured my tummy because it turned a masterful blend of Science Fiction and Horror and turned it into a rather simple summer action flick.

The original Terminator was based on a pretty hoaky premise of time-traveling robot assassins, but this really didn't bring the movie down as an experience because the premise was mere exposition that took only a few minutes of screen time to explain. The rest of the movie was right there in your face in the immediate present with some mean mother fucker chasing your ass. This part of the flick was scripted to action movie perfection and you could ignore the weak premise.

T2 had that stupid premise integrated throughout the movie and suffered as a believable narrative because of it.

And the parts that didn't require a heavy dose of integrating this flawed concept were not so well done. Acting was off key, kid's display of humanity was not so believable for the roll he played, for one instance of poor characterization, and the editing of the scene transitions was also too heavy handed. Things really didn't flow well between scenes though there was really good unity within the individual scenes because of the advanced use of CGI. Transition points became moments to show off the specular highlights.

CGI pretty damn spectacular in this one, but the movie as a movie sucked. 

T2, come on, best of the series by far.

Go map.

AVP was bad bad (not good bad like Freddy v Jason). They could have done a simple straightforward genre flick like that but they fucked it up. They needed a better excuse for them to fight, if they WANTED some big ancient aliens conspiracy then they should have made it not retarded. Von Daniken fucks everything up once again. And the Predators were portrayed as idiots: they make this big game, but it's easy for them to not have their planned weapons, and I expected a love scene with the predator and that one chick at the end. The predators are an evil heartless race that believes in survival of the fittest within certain rules, they would never "work with humans" against the "greater evil" but would rather grind humans into ketchup. 

http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/alien-squirrel-759031.jpg

Terror has never been more furry. 

blowed. Avp requiem blows more.

And to those who saw it to see aliens and predators fight, did you actually see anything? I mean its shot with 50 edits per second in near darkness, how do you know what's killing what?

And headthump, valid points, Aliens was a summer action flick but a pretty damn good one. Yes it completely changes tone from Alien (the best one) but it's probably one of the best action films going around.

And T1 suffered from the premise just as much as T2 in my opinion. T2 is a better action film, I can see your point re T1 but I dont see how it affects T2.

And for what its worth, I liked T3 too (though it is by far the weakest).